New Beginning
by Aerilon452
Summary: Sequel to my story A CHANCE MEETING. Dorothy, Shadow to the Cheyenne, is once more in Colorado Springs where she is afraid she will be discovered by her white family and taken from the husband she loves so much.
1. Chapter 1

Summary: Dorothy is brought back to Colorado Springs straight to Michaela Quinn's clinic.

Rating: T for now.

Pairing: Dorothy and Cloud Dancing.

**A NEW BEGINNING:**

Shadow felt strange, felt drugged. She was slowly surfacing from the black to feel the familiar arms of her love, her husband, Cloud Dancing around her, but something was off. She couldn't hear the birds in the trees. Instead she heard the chatter of the white man, the language she had forgotten long ago. There was pain in her arm, pain in her leg, and a pain in her head. She wanted to sit up, but the feel of Cloud Dancing kept her where she was, kept her in he warm embrace. But she had to wake, she had to sit up. Opening her eyes Shadow saw the face of a white woman. This alarmed her to the point she was moving as far into Cloud Dancing's arms as she could. _"Where am I?"_

"_You are safe."_ Cloud Dancing answered. He should have known this would be her reaction upon waking. Shadow had more distrust for the white men than any one of his people. Only, he knew her reason for the distrust. The people who should have loved her, turned their backs on her, left her to suffer, to be beaten. Since coming to the Cheyenne, not once had she been touched in anger. Cloud Dancing had only touched her in love and that was how he would touch her for the rest of their lives. _"__Dr. Mike __has stitched up the wounds you sustained."_

Shadow stopped moving and felt her weary body, took stock of all of her injuries. There was pain in her right thigh, and in her left arm. How had she been injured? She didn't remember. Lifting her left arm she saw the bandage and felt a light tugging on her skin.

"Don't move too much or you'll break the stitches." Michaela said keeping her voice light and friendly to try and put the other woman at ease. She wasn't sure if Shadow would understand her. The woman was white, but she was dressed as a Cheyenne Indian. Buck skin pants, moccasins, a rawhide vest, and her wild mane of red hair had been tamed back into a braid with beads and quail feathers at the end secured with a leather cord. Who was this woman? Who had she been before the tribe?

Shadow angled her head to look at Cloud Dancing with questions forming, "_Who is this white woman? She tended to my wounds?" _It made no sense for a white woman to tend to someone like her. Why would she help a Cheyenne? People like her were feared, hated, for everything.

"_Her name is Dr. Michaela Quinn; Dr. Mike to those around here. Her knowledge helped her to tend your wounds."_ Cloud Dancing answered looking at the female doctor. This first time he had met her she was pulling a bullet from Chief Black Kettle's neck in her homestead, risking her freedom at the hands of the army. "_She is the Medicine Woman."_

Michaela recognized her Cheyenne name as she watched in rapt fascination the way Cloud Dancing talked to the woman in his arms. His voice was soft, filled with love. It amazed her to no end how gentle the Cheyenne were, and yet the army wouldn't hesitate to wipe them all out.

"_Why would she do this? I am not of her kind. She is a white woman."_ Shadow tuned her gaze to the woman, but something in the Doctors face didn't make her leap to distrust. In fact Shadow wanted to trust her.

"What's she saying?" Michaela asked, her irritation rising at being in the room yet not in the conversation. Sully had been teaching her the Cheyenne language, but she only knew a handful of words.

"She wishes to know why you helped her. My wife does not trust the white man." Cloud Dancing answered. Just as he counted Sully as his brother, the medicine man now counted this female Doctor as one of his friends. She had done much for him in the past. Then the way she had tended to his wife was one more debt he owed to her.

"I took an oath to do no harm. I help heal people rather than to do them injury." Michaela answered in earnest. She wanted the woman to trust her. There wasn't a bone in her body that could ever make her inflict pain on another living person. She only wanted to help heal mankind. It was why Michaela became a doctor.

"That…. Is… a… noble sen… senti… sentiment." Shadow fumbled with the words in a language she had long ago abandoned. It was a language of lies and deceit.

"You can speak English?" Michaela didn't know why she sounded so surprised. The woman was white; she was raised party as a white woman. Still, to hear her speak was astonishing.

Cloud Dancing answered, "She does not like to." Lightly he ran his hand down the side of his wife's face. Shadow was as brave and as strong as any warrior or Dog soldier, but she was also gentle and kind. All the gentleness he could give her was what she needed from him.

**GENERAL STORE:**

Loren trudged through the open doors of his store and passed right by his wife Maude; Dorothy's sister. Right now he couldn't function, couldn't think, he was only moving on instinct. He had just seen the last person he had thought to be seeing in Dr. Mike's clinic. It had been the red headed beauty of his dreams, Dorothy. She was the one he had been deeply in love with ever since he was a kid, but she had never looked his way so he had settled for Maude. Loren Bray had settled. Going up to the second level Lauren sat down on the edge of his bed and tried to think through everything he had seen.

"Lauren?' Maude came through the door, "Did Dr. Mike help you?" She looked at her forlorn husband sitting on the edge of their bed. "What's the matter?"

"I saw someone who should be dead." He looked up at Maude. "Over in the clinic Dorothy was lying there in one of the recovery beds. Your dead sister ain't so dead." Lauren snapped. The shock was melting away giving the anger a foothold in his mind. He was angry at seeing her alive and seeing her in the arms of some damned Injun looking like them.

"What are you sayin'?" Maude sat down next to her husband and tried not to break into hysterics. She had mourned her sister so many years ago.

"You heard me!" Lauren snapped. "She's over in Dr. Mike's Clinic. Go and see for yourself if you don't believe me!" He stormed out and back down to the store to throw himself into work until his mind could process what his eyes had seen.

**CLINIC:**

Shadow watched the white doctor put some powder in a glass of water, stirring it up. She didn't know what she was doing and Shadow didn't want to know. All the Cheyenne wanted to do was get on her horse and head back to the camp. Nothing about this town put her at ease. "_I do not wish to stay here."_

"_For now, you need a doctor and she is the best._" Cloud Dancing replied resting his hands over her flat stomach. Her skin was quivering from repressed pain.

Michaela once again turned to Shadow who was nestled close to Cloud Dancing. The woman looked so comfortable and wary at the same time. Sitting down again Michaela offered shadow the glass of water with powdered morphine mixed in. "This will ease any pain you have."

There was nothing Shadow wanted less than the white man's medicine. She didn't trust them, didn't know them anymore. In her mind she was a Cheyenne and that was how she wanted to stay. "Wh…at… is… it?" Shadow struggled with the language. It hurt her heart and pained her soul to have to use the language that brought her nothing but misery.

"It's a little bit of morphine, a pain killer, mixed with water. It will dull the pain you have to be feeling." Michaela once again held out the water glass. It wasn't easy to break past mistrust, but she had done it before and hoped to do the same thing again with Shadow.

Shadow tentatively reached out taking the glass in her left hand. She hadn't let herself feel the pain until now. It was a throbbing ache traveling up her right leg and a pounding pain in her right shoulder. "Thank… you…" she inclined her head slowly before taking a drink of the odd tasting water. As she drank she could feel her pain ebbing.

"_How do you feel?_" Cloud Dancing asked. He knew what it took for Shadow to take the medicine offered her.

"_Just fine. I wish I could go home."_ Shadow answered keeping her eyes on the white doctor. Two more swallows and she handed the glass back. Quicker and quicker the pain was falling away from her mind. Also at the same time she was getting tired again. She wanted to sleep even more than she wanted to go home.

"You two are more than welcome to stay here while Shadow regains her strength." Dr. Mike offered. She wanted this woman to trust her. Michaela didn't have many friends. More than anything she wanted to be friends with Shadow.

"That is not necessary. We will leave soon." Cloud Dancing answered. He didn't want to keep shadow here any longer than he should have to. It was dangerous in this town for her, he knew that, but Dr. Mike did not.

"Cloud Dancing, she shouldn't be moved yet, not while the stitches are still fresh." Michaela argued gently looking the blood seeping onto the bandage around Shadow's thigh. She reached out for fresh bandages. On an automatic instinct she started to remove the bandage so she could replace it with a fresh one. The work she would do could cause pain, but Shadow never flinched.

"I have to get her out of here. It is not safe for us." Cloud Dancing said. This was the truth, yet the Doctor refused to see it. Michaela was kind hearted and a healer. That was what he admired about her. He only wished that more of her people thought like her.

"What do you mean?" Michaela asked. Cloud Dancing had mentioned whip marks on the back of his wife. Did it have anything to do why the Cheyenne adopted her? She wanted to ask.

"_Do not tell her_," Shadow said. It was bad enough that she was here in this town again. It was dangerous for anyone to know she was here.

"_I will not for it is not my story to tell._" Gently he kissed the top of his wife's head. If he had the power he would take then far from this land to a place where no one would harm them ever again. But the white man was everywhere, infecting every thing. Soon there would be nothing left for is people.

"_Do you think she will…_?"

"_No! Dr. Mike is a good woman. You can trust her._" He assured Shadow.

"If you're worried about your safety, no one will bother you. I promise." Michaela didn't have to understand the language to know what was being said. Shadow was worried, Cloud Dancing was concerned for his wife, and together they were bound to leave as soon as she turned her back.

"How can you… pro…mise… this?" Shadow asked using Cloud Dancing's thighs to brace her hands on so she could sit up and lean back against his chest. There was nothing for her in Colorado Springs. Her family was the Cheyenne and her life was with them. "I wish… to… leave," Shadow found the words, but se still fumbled them in speaking.

"This is my clinic. No one will come in here if you feel threatened." Michaela assured. "It's not a good idea for you to be riding a horse with fresh stitches in your thigh and in your arm." She hoped shadow would listen and rest. It didn't matter to Michaela that she was Cheyenne. Michaela only cared about treating the woman's injuries and making sure she was safe.

**THE NEXT DAY:**

Cloud Dancing hadn't left Shadow's side all night. He could feel the unease coursing through her body, feel the way she would jump every time a door opened and closed while she rested. His heart hurt to see her so uncomfortable, but she said nothing and she rested. Cloud Dancing kept his arms gently around her listening to all the sounds of the town just beyond the balcony. He tried not to sleep, but in the dark of night his eyes fell closed and together they slept. When he woke the next morning Shadow was not in his arms. She was standing on the balcony looking down at the people. "_Shadow?_" He said climbing out of bed going to her. As he stepped to her side more people stopped to look at them. Out of a need for her skin, Cloud Dancing took his wife's hand as he continued to watch the people.

"_I hate how they stare at us. They see us as savages._" Shadow spoke clenching his hand as two men stopped to stare openly at her. With her right hand she reached up and pushed back her braided mane of red hair. She knew how she looked to others; she looked very much like a savage. Shadow was still dressed in her buck skin pants, her rawhide vest was still buttoned up with the bandage on her left arm showing no blood, and her hair was braided like any other woman's would be except she had beads through strands of her hair and at the end of the braid where it was tied off quail feathers were wrapped around under the white tie.

"_We are not savages. These white men destroy every thing they touch, where we live with what the spirits have given us._" It was an age old argument. The People fought to have their land stay the way it was while the white man raped and pillaged the land scarring it forever.

"_I know, but that does not stop them from thinking it._" Shadow replied turning from the sight of the towns folk to look at the man she loved more than life itself. He was her only world, her only life. Cloud dancing had pulled her out of the dark, out of a terrible life, and given her a home, love, and a family. No matter how much time would pass; she could never repay him. "_I love you._"

"_And I love you,_" Cloud Dancing gently pulled her close encasing her in his arms Shadow tucked her head under his chin and sighed. Smiling, he began to rub small circles on her back. It was as much for her as it was for him. Cloud Dancing never got enough of her, enough of the feel of her. She was his world.

"Hello? Anybody there?" A voice called from inside the room.

Cloud Dancing and Shadow tensed hearing an unfamiliar voice emanating from the room where they had been resting. Instinctively Shadow reached for the knife at the small of her back grasping the handle. Then a darker skinned woman appeared in the balcony doorway wearing a kind smile and holding a tray of food that smelled really good. Shadow dropped her hand sensing no threat to her or to her husband.

"My name is Grace. I run the café just out back. Dr. Mike asked if I would bring some food up to you. I hope y'all like fried chicken." Grace smiled gently seeing the mistrust floating in the eyes of the woman. Grace backed up inside and set the tray down on the table.

Shadow stepped away from Cloud Dancing following the smell of food. She hadn't realized how hungry she was until she smelled the food. It had to have been at least two days since she last ate. "Thank you." She spoke, not fumbling with the words.

"Oh, you are most welcome." Grace reached out and patted the woman's hand that rested on the table. "Now come and sit. You need to eat." She motioned for Cloud Dancing to join them. Grace knew who he was from seeing him with Sully a time or two. But never had she had the occasion to talk to him.

Shadow sat down on the edge of the bed and waited. She would have been happy enough to get her own food, but Grace seemed willing enough to bring her the plate. The pain in her thigh and arm weren't as bad as it was yesterday. Hopefully the doctor would let her leave. But first she wanted to eat. Grace brought over a plate and with a smile she offered it to Shadow. Again she said, "Thank you."

"You are quite welcome." Grace smiled broadly handing the second plate to Cloud Dancing. She went to retrieve the tray, then stopped to ask, "Is there anything else you'd like?"

"No, this is enough. Thank you." Cloud Dancing answered offering Grace a gentle smile.

"Ok then, I'll tell Dr. Mike you're doin much better." Grace took the tray and headed out of the room with one last look back to the Cheyenne couple sitting on the bed eating quietly together. Personally, Grace couldn't see what everyone was talking about. She had no room to judge, her own people were enslaved, but the Indians were being wiped out slowly every day. "If you need anything else, my café is just around the corner from the clinic. Feel free to come by." She offered before shutting the door and leaving them to their meal.

"_Two nice people in two days. This town is not what I remember,"_ Shadow said around a mouth full of chicken.

"_Is this not a good sign? Perhaps those who hurt you are gone._" Cloud Dancing offered, but he doubted it. Not after seeing how that man reacted upon seeing Shadow yesterday.

"_My luck is not that good. Those people would have to be dead and buried in the ground for my pain to ease a fraction._" Shadow spoke of death easily, but there was nothing easy about her pain. She wanted them to die, to leave this world and journey into the next so they could never hurt her again.

**GRACE'S CAFÉ:**

Michaela sat with Brian and Colleen outdoors at Grace's Café. She was waiting for her friend to come back from the clinic after delivering food to Shadow and Cloud Dancing. Michaela was also waiting for Sully. He said he would have lunch with them today. Maybe he stopped by to see his beet friend.

"Dr. Mike." Grace came over to her table. "I stopped by liked you asked and brought them the food."

"Thank you Grace. How did they seem to you?" Michaela asked. she hadn't the heart to go and disturb them after she found them sleeping so peacefully together.

"They seemed fine to me. The woman is a little scared, but it's understandable. She's out of place here." Grace answered sitting down across from the Doctor for a moment.

"Hmm, it might not be the place so much as the town which unnerves her. Shadow was eager to leave yesterday when she woke up."

"You may be right. Folks round here aren't as open minded as you are." Grace said. It was the truth. When Dr. Mike came to town she was a breath of fresh air and was quick to make friends with Grace and Robert E.

"Well, after lunch I'll be sure to check on her." Michaela answered looking up in time to see Sully heading towards them. That brought an instant smile to her face.

"Ma, can I help you out in the Clinic today?" Colleen asked.

"Are you sure?" Michaela asked her daughter. She was pleased when Colleen wanted to come to the clinic. She harbored the small hope that Colleen would want to become a Doctor like her.

"Yes, I was going to spend time with Becky but her family needs her so…"

"The clinic wins by default?" Michaela laughed at the look on her daughters face. "I don't see a problem with that. I would welcome your help." After lunch she was going to go back and check on Shadow to make sure the wounds weren't reopened. If all looked well then she would let the Cheyenne woman go home.


	2. Chapter 2

Summary: Dorothy is brought back to Colorado Springs straight to Michaela Quinn's clinic.

Rating: T for now.

Pairing: Dorothy and Cloud Dancing.

**A NEW BEGINNING:**

**GENEREAL STORE:**

Loren Bray stood just inside the door of his store where he could see the woman he had thought long dead. Dorothy had been brought into the clinic the day before where she had been shot. Right now he could see her wrapped in the arms of the Indian that had rode into town with Sully. Why had Dorothy's parents lied to the town? Loren hadn't really believed that she had died, even when they had found her belongings in the deserted Indian camp. Loren never believed it. Now there Dorothy was, standing just out of his reach, again. She was alive and he was married to her sister. But Loren didn't even know if he would know that Dorothy. To his eyes, she had changed. She was one of them now. Slowly he stepped back into his store to begin the day.

**CLINIC:**

Michaela opened the door to her clinic, taking a deep breath, as she always did first thing in the morning. All was quiet and for a moment she feared her Cheyenne patient had fled in the middle of the night. Hurrying up the stairs to the second floor recovery rooms Michaela opened the door to find the room vacant, but the doors to the balcony were open. Cloud Dancing was standing close to his wife, holding her as she sat on the railing. Together they were watching the town below them. Then they became aware of her. "I'm sorry for barging in. I was worried you…."

"You feared we had left?" Cloud Dancing asked Dr. Mike as he helped Shadow from the railing. The medicine woman was a good friend to the Cheyenne, to Sully, and to himself that he knew he could trust her. "We did not."

"Yes," Michaela inclined her head feeling foolish for a second. "I came to check on my patient." She said motioning for Shadow to make herself comfortable on the bed. "I need to change your bandages." Michaela took a step foreword to offer her hand to help the injured Cheyenne woman help, but Shadow froze. "I'm not going to do you harm." Michaela assured still seeing mistrust surrounding the other woman.

"_You can trust her._" Cloud Dancing spoke to his wife in the language she was comfortable with. He knew the deep mistrust his wife had of the white man; it was a mistrust he had as well except for a few. "_She has already proven she can be trusted._"

"_How will I know she will not ask about my past?_" Shadow demanded swaying on her feet. Hands reached out to her, his and the Doctors. They were guiding her back to the bed. She had expended too much of her regained energy. Arms were around her then, picking her up, carrying her to the bed. "_I am sorry._" Shadow sobbed the pain becoming a forefront in her mind now.

"_You have nothing to be sorry for._" Cloud Dancing whispered holding his wife close, sitting down on the bed with her in his arms. "_The white man can not leave us alone._" Lovingly he kissed the top of her head as he looked to the Doctor. "In my bag there is a salve, yarrow, you may use on her wounds." Cloud Dancing carefully motioned to the satchel on the table.

"Your medicine is what she needs now." Michaela agreed retrieving the satchel. "I'll be back with new bandages." She muttered leaving the room. Down stairs Michaela gathered what she needed. She couldn't help but to smile at the way Cloud Dancing held his wife. The color of their skin didn't seem to matter to them; they were in love.

"Ma?" Colleen came inside the clinic after coming back from the telegraph office. She had asked Horace to send a telegram for her mother. Looking at her ma now, Colleen could see an odd expression on her mothers face. "Is everything alright?" Colleen asked.

Michaela turned to her daughter. "Yes, I'm fine Colleen. Would you take a cup of tea up to the woman in recovery room three?" she asked turning back to get a few more bandages.

"Sure." Colleen prepared the tea and then headed upstairs. On the second floor Colleen moved down the hall to hear voices speaking in the Cheyenne tongue. Curious she went to the right room to open the door where two Indian's were on the bed. One of them she knew; Cloud Dancing. But the white woman she didn't know.

Cloud Dancing looked to the door once more expecting to see Dr. Mike. Instead her daughter was there holding a cup. "Colleen?" He made her name a question.

"Ma asked me to bring this up. I guess it's a cup of willow bark tea for her." Colleen stepped into the room, over to the bed, and offered the cup to the white Indian lying against Cloud Dancing. "I hope this helps." The woman took the cup with a small smile.

Shadow offered a gentle smile to the young woman who offered her to tea. The girl was no older than she had been the night she had ridden away from Colorado Springs and where Cloud Dancing had found her. "Thank you." Shadow replied and then took a sip of the warm tea. Even though she didn't trust the white doctor, the kind woman knew that Shadow was beginning to get a fever.

"I'll go and get Ma now so she can change your bandages." Colleen said leaving the room. She headed down the steps where her mother lingered by the table where the clean bandages were kept. "Ma, she's back on the bed."

"_Do you still wish to not trust these people?_" Cloud Dancing asked his wife when the young woman left closing the door. It took so much for him to convince her to stay with the tribe most days. Shadow was so angry when it came to white hunters encroaching on their land. She always wanted to take action and she must have when he had been off with the hunting party. Cloud Dancing knew well the reasons for her anger. But shadow could not continue to take her anger out on Dr. Mike.

"_No,_" Shadow responded. Mistrust was a common ailment among the Cheyenne people and Shadow knew she suffered from it severely. At times just seeing the pain, the brutality in which the white man had ravaged the land made Shadow furious. Her people were dying. "_I should know better by now._"

"_Yes, you should._" Cloud Dancing agreed. Shadow settled into him breathing out slowly. "_Do you have pain?_" He asked knowing her personal habits for fighting back pain. "_And do not lie to me._" He warned stopping her before she could open her mouth.

"_The stitches the medicine woman has put in are tugging and they are causing me pain._" Shadow answered running her hand down, placing her palm over the wound in her thigh. When would the white man leave the Cheyenne alone? Shadow knew she would never see the day they were left in peace. The white men were too greedy.

"I hope I'm not interrupting." Michaela poked her head in the door seeing Cloud Dancing and Shadow just as she had left them. This time, rather than being met with suspicious eyes, Shadow offered Michaela a small smile tinged with a small amount of pain.

"You are not." Shadow answered trying to sit up. Her body would not obey her commands. At least her husband was with her, holding her up. "I require your help." Slowly she held out her bandaged arm waiting for the Doctor to help. This was a big step for Shadow to take and she knew it was the right one.

"This may twinge a little bit." Michaela mentioned removing the bandage. The stitches were red, but there were signs of healing. She took the salve Cloud Dancing had made and spread it on a bandage where she gently set it to the wound. Shadow hissed in pain but she made no move to shy away from her touch. Michaela held her hand over the poultice so she could wrap a fresh bandage over the wound.

"I have been through worse pain." Shadow admitted thinking back to the night Cloud Dancing had found her, tended her wounds, and nursed her back to health. "This is not so bad." Shadow shifted so Dr. Mike could tend to the wound on her thigh. The bandage had blood marring the white fabric. As the medicine woman removed the bandage she felt sharp stabs of pain shooting up her leg. A cry of pain escaped her lips before she could call it back.

Michaela pulled her hands back quickly when Shadow whimpered in pain. The wound on her thigh had a small infection inflaming the stitches. "It's a good thing you brought the yarrow. The infection is mild and with the salve it should abate." She took the salve spreading it thickly on the angry red skin. "After I change the bandage, I'll take you over to Grace's Café to get you something to eat."

"This woman would allow us to eat?" Shadow questioned. The woman she had met yesterday, Grace, seemed nice enough but no one wanted a Cheyenne around even a Cheyenne woman. "I do not want to cause trouble." She informed fighting back the momentary stinging pain of the salve by holding tight to her husband's hand.

"Why would you cause trouble?" Michaela asked. Though, she could decipher the meaning behind her question. "Grace won't have a problem." She assured, "Besides we have to get you moving around as much as possible. It will keep the blood flowing and help aide the healing as much as the yarrow will." Michaela tied off the new bandage and then backed off the bed.

**GRACE'S CAFÉ:**

The out door café was buzzing with activity only to come to a complete halt when the towns folk saw Shadow and Cloud Dancing take a table with Michaela and Sully when he met up with them around the corner. Sully ignored the stares as he was accustomed to them. Michaela tried not to stare back when she looked to Shadow, who was looking around nervously. 'Perhaps bringing them here was not a good idea,' Michaela thought sliding her gaze to Sully. He only shrugged and then turned to Cloud Dancing.

Shadow kept scanning the crowd trying to see if people recognized her. So far no one seemed to know her or tried to look too closely though the Cheyenne appearance she had adopted as her own. It was a way of hiding in plain sight. Still, the feeling of being scrutinized would not leave her alone. To push aside the need to run, Shadow reached out to Cloud Dancing to take his hand. That alone gained more of the townsfolk attention. "_I do not like being out in the open._" Shadow muttered gripping her husbands hand tighter.

"_Do not worry._" Cloud Dancing brought the back of his wife's hand to lips. "_We are together._" Hopefully they would go back to the Cheyenne land soon. He too was becoming uneasy about being in town surrounded by so many. For the sake of his wife's health he would endure the stares, the whispers, of the white men around him.

"Afternoon folks," Grace had seen Dr. Mike and Sully sit at a table with the two Indians she had met yesterday in the clinic. One of them she knew because of Sully. Cloud Dancing was a good man who had helped around town when various problems arose. "I see your patient is up and walking around." Grace smiled being friendly.

"I am…" Shadow faltered with the white mans tongue. "Good." It had been a long time since she had to speak as they did. Some words came to her easier than others. It was because she was so used to her native Cheyenne tongue. It was a language that made her heart feel free. "The… food…" Again she faltered with more of the white mans words. "Smells good." Shadow finished.

"That would be the meat loaf special for lunch as well as some boiled potatoes and green beans. Along with a cup of warm apple cider to warm you up on a cool autumn day." Grace informed them to the lunch special. She could see that the woman was confused. "I'll bring y'all a plate." Then she was off back to the stove.

"Grace is a wonderful cook," Michaela spoke to Shadow who still looked around uneasy. "Are you alright?" She asked seeing the stares and hearing the whispers floating on the air.

Shadow smiled weakly at the doctor, "I am… fine," It was a lie. There was trouble coming her way. She could sense it. Most of the people who stared at her, she vaguely remembered them from when she had been young. They, however, didn't seem to remember her. She only kept her eyes scanning the crowd looking for three people who would know her; her white mother, her abusive father, and her sister. They weren't her parents anymore, Shadow reminded herself. She had a Cheyenne family who loved her no matter the color of her skin, the wild side she could never tame, or the proud love she had for their Medicine Man.

Loren ambled over to Grace's as he did every afternoon at lunch time to see Dr. Mike, Sully, and the two Indians sitting at a table eating like nothing was wrong. If he was a better person he would say nothing, ignore it all, and just sit down with his back to them. But he wasn't a better person. While he had a head full of steam, Loren went over to the table to voice what he had been thinking. He wove in and out through the tables until he reached the one they were sitting at. It wasn't Dr. Mike he addressed, but Dorothy. "What gives you the right to come back to this town when people thought you was dead?! You should get out! Go back to being dead!" He shouted seeing the look of genuine fear in her eyes. Dorothy backed away from the table so fast that she knocked over the chair being taken to the ground.

"Loren!" Michaela scolded him as she got out of her chair to go to Shadow. There was blood on her bandage that was around her thigh. The stitches were more than likely ripped open from her fall. "Cloud Dancing can you take her back to the Clinic?" Michaela was still glaring at Loren.

"I can not." Cloud Dancing helped his wife up, but made sure not to pick her up as his instincts were screaming at him to do. She was strong, able to bear the brunt of this pain. "We should return to Cheyenne land." He looked to Sully, seeing the understanding his brother's eyes. "You can tend her wounds there."

"Cloud Dancing, Shadow needs medical care and supervision until she is well enough to ride a horse." Michaela turned her attention from the still fuming Loren Bray back to her friend the Cheyenne Medicine man. "Taking a short walk, with help, is one thing. Riding a horse would put too much strain on her stitches that I now have to redo." She pointed out seeing the truth of her words sink in.

Shadow tried to control her breathing, fight back the terrible stabbing pain her leg, and the urge to scream. She had been found and now she sensed she would be taken away from her people, from her family, and from the man she loved and married. It was making her panic. "_Take me home. Take me back to our land right now!_" Shadow cried out putting her hand over her wound once more. Grazing her fingers was her blood, warm and red, just as red as the blood her people had shed because of the white man.

"_We can not._" Cloud Dancing stressed keeping his eyes on the older white man who had ranted and raved at his wife. He knew she vaguely remembered the white man and it was causing Shadow to panic. There had been rumors amongst the other tribes of white men coming in and taking members of the tribe away. Shadow would not be taken from him. Cloud Dancing would die rather than be parted from her.

"_He will tell those who will take me away!_" She cried out from more pain. Then she was in Cloud Dancing's arms and he was taking her back to the clinic. Shadow held tight to him feeling out of control, feeling helpless, and knowing that danger would befall them the longer they lingered in this town of death.

Michaela watched them leave feeling her heart fill with dread and fear for her patient and her friend. "Sully?" She questioned needing some sort of reassurance. "What was that about?" Never had she seen Loren in such a state.

"I don't know." Sully shrugged watching Loren storm away off towards the meadow. "I can ask Cloud Dancing if you want. He might tell me rather than you." He pointed out. Even though his brother treated Dr. Mike like a friend, there was still the tiniest bit of mistrust in regards to her. Sully could understand it. Cloud Dancing was looking out for his wife.

"Thank you." Michaela nodded. "I'll be along in a minute. I think she needs a minute for Cloud Dancing to calm her." Sully patted her shoulder before heading back to the clinic. Then Grace appeared at her side. "This has been and eventful day, would you say?"

"I hope that poor woman is gonna be alright Dr. Mike." Grace gripped the cross she wore sending up a silent prayer for the Indian woman she had seen happy and talking just moments before Loren started screaming at her. "I really hope she is ok."

"Me too Grace," Michaela left some money on the table and then headed back to her clinic to tend to Shadow. The door to the clinic was left open where she saw Colleen using a chloroform rag over Shadow's nose and mouth. "What happened?!"

"She was fighting. I had to do something so she wouldn't rip the other stitches in her arm." Colleen spoke quickly taking the rag away as the woman quieted. Cloud Dancing and Sully backed away to allow her Ma to come closer to the table. "I'm sorry Ma."

"No, no… Colleen you did the right thing." Michaela offered going immediately for the wound on Shadow's thigh. Blood flowed faster this time. "She has another laceration that has ruptured. The wall of the artery must have been thin from the gun shot." Michaela set about repairing the damage while Sully ushered Cloud Dancing outside to wait.


End file.
